Schizophrenia and frontotemporal dementia: Shared causation?

Abstract

The relationship between specific genes and particular diseases in neuropsychiatry is unclear, and newer studies focus on shared domains of neurobiological and cognitive pathology across different disorders. This paper reviews the evidence for an association between schizophrenia and frontotemporal dementia, including symptom similarity, familial co-morbidity, and neuroanatomical changes. Genetic as well as epigenetic findings from both schizophrenia and frontotemporal dementia are also discussed. As a result, we introduce the hypothesis of a shared susceptibility for certain subgroups of schizophrenia and frontotemporal dementia. This common causation may involve the same gene(s) at different stages of life: early in schizophrenia and late in frontotemporal dementia. Additionally, we provide a rationale for future research that should emphasize both genetic and cognitive parallels between certain forms of schizophrenia and frontotemporal dementia in a synergistic, coordinated way, placing both in the context of aberrant lateralization patterns.

Acknowledgements

We thank Dmitri Bougakov for his assistance with literature reviews in preparation of this paper.

Declaration of interest: While preparing this manuscript, M.H. was receiving a scholarship from the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education; and DM was supported by NIH RC1 MH088843 and K24 MH01699 (DM). The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.